


Five Times Peter Mentioned Howard and the One Time Tony Didn't Tell Him to Shove Off

by lullabyforstrings



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: But mostly angst, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Tony Stark Has A Heart, light humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-09 00:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11658225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lullabyforstrings/pseuds/lullabyforstrings
Summary: “Mr. Stark’ll know, Peter,” Tony hears Peter’s friend—Ned, he thinks his name is—ask with all the seriousness a fifteen year old can muster.“Ned, do not…”“What? Questions about puberty? Yes, it’s normal—““Mr. Stark, is a hot dog a sandwich?”Tony takes off his sunglasses. It’s too early for this shit.





	1. I

“Hey, kid,” Tony says as he rolls down the window.

“Mr. Stark’ll know, Peter,” Tony hears Peter’s friend—Ned, he thinks his name is—ask with all the seriousness a fifteen year old can muster.

“Ned, do not…”

“What? Questions about puberty? Yes, it’s normal—“

“Mr. Stark, is a hot dog a sandwich?” 

Tony takes off his sunglasses. It’s too early for this shit.

Peter’s face turns red. “Oh my fucking god, Ned.”

“It’s a hot dog,” Tony says. “A sandwich has two pieces of bread that aren’t connected.”

“So is an egg roll a hot dog then?”

Tony frowns, rearing back a bit. “No, it’s an eggroll.”

“Okay,” Peter says, desperately trying to move his best friend out of the way.

“Why do you look like you haven’t slept in a week?” Peter asks, taking in his mentor’s wardrobe. For a man who has made the Forbes Top 100 Wealthiest Men list since he was in diapers, he looked like a homeless who happened to robe an antique store today.

Tony raises his eyebrows at Peter. “Could ask the same of you. Your socks aren’t matching.”

“It was intentional.”

“Trying to start a trend?”

“No, the dryer just ate my other one.”

Tony smirks as he turns his attention back to his phone.  
“No, but if the condition for a hot dog to be a hot dog is to have a single, conjoined piece of bread, then what’s a gyro? A hot dog.”

Tony’s brow furrows. “What are you talking about? A gyro is a gyro.”

“That goes against your logic, though.”

“Just do your fucking homework, okay?” Tony snaps. “We have a two hour drive with traffic. This conversation is over.”

Peter bites down on his lip. 

“Fine,” he mumbles. “Can we stop and get gyros?”

“I’ll throw you off this bridge if you say one more word.”

“Okay, okay,” Peter says, hands up in mock surrender. “I’m sorry, Tony.”

He bends down to grab his backpack. He has a ten pager due soon—probably should get started on it. 

Tony doesn’t even look up from his phone. “Mr. Stark.”

Peter stops shuffling through his backpack. “I thought you said you didn’t like “Mr. Stark.” You said it was too formal…made you sound like your dad.”

If there was one thing Peter noticed, it was that Tony never mentioned Howard. He had mentioned his mother a few times in passing, but for such a monumental figure—hell, as someone who laid the groundwork for Tony—Tony didn’t say much about Howard.

“That was before you just asked me if a gyro was a hot dog,” Tony says as he rubs his temple. “Don’t you have homework or shit to do?”

“I have a paper for history to do,” Peter says as he pulls out an old Ziploc bag that contains…something. It’s something. He doesn’t know what. It looks like an old ham sandwich, but he’s not sure. It’s definitely two weeks old…maybe more like four weeks old based on the mold.

“It’s, uh, on innovations from the last century,” he says as he shoves the sandwich back into his backpack and zips it back up. “How historians viewed them from back when they were actively working on those innovations to how historians view them now, you know? Stuff like that.”

“People get paid to think about that shit at the university level, you know?” Tony replies as she he types furiously on his phone. “And people complain about their taxes potentially going to the Avengers.”

“How would history view your dad?”

Tony looks back down at his phone. “As a peacekeeper,” he says only to casually shrug his shoulders. “Or as a merchant of death. Either one.”

“And you’re on which side of that debate?”

Tony sighs. “Neither.”


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who left kudos on the first chapter. This is one is a continuation of the first one. Tony and Peter are at the Avengers' facility, working on a few suits (well, Peter was working on his suit until Tony forced him to do his actual homework).

“Why do I have to write this?” Peter groans, slumping back in his chair. Tony looks over his work-desk to see the kid hauled up over his textbook, a few crumpled up, printed articles and waterlogged textbook.

Tony turns back to his work. “Because your teacher told you to.”

“Didn’t you have like, a 5% attendance at MIT?”

Fair.

“Do as I say, not as I do, kid.”

“So what do you think your dad’s most important invention was?”

Tony doesn’t even try to hide the frustration in his voice. “Aren’t you supposed to be researching what historians think about that?”

“The assignment says compare two perspectives. I’m comparing David McCullough and yours.”

“I have more degrees than I can count, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t get one in history,” Tony says as he grabs a towel to wipe his hands on. His hands are always dirty—a smear of grease stuck under his nails, an oil stain on his shirt—so there is no point in wiping it off, but he knows enough about himself that it’s a defense mechanism. Just like the sarcasm, just like the arrogance.

Peter shakes his head, voice bubbling with confidence but with a hint of hesitation. “I mean…your perspective is obviously still valid. You’re like my primary source.”

“Look, kid, I’m not a great person to ask about this.”

“But you’re his son…”

Tony scoffs. “Sure as hell isn’t what Howard would call me.”

Peter bites down on his lip as he looks at his mentor. “Mr. Stark, I-I shouldn’t have asked…”

Tony can feel his hands sweat. He’s barely functioning on two hours of sleep, he doesn’t need this. “Whatever. It’s fine, kid.”

“Mr. Stark, I…”

“Zip it.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Did your dad let you work near him growing up?”

Tony continues working, trying his best to ignore the question. If he’s being honest, he tunes out the kid most of the time, but his ears register enough to stop what he was working on.

“Hm?”

“What was the best piece of advice he gave you? I mean, you built your first robot at what…five?” Peter asks. It’s a lie. He knows for a fact that Mr. Stark built his first robot at six, but he doesn’t want to sound too obsessive so he lowballs the number. Not that Mr. Stark thinks he’s anything less than an awkward fifteen—well, probably fourteen year old—in Mr. Stark’s mind. 

Tony clucks his tongue. “Well, wrap it up was probably the best one.”

Tony watches as Peter pulls an old Dorito out of the pocket of his hoodie, stopping for a second to consider if it was fresh enough to attempt to eat. “You haven’t had a vasectomy yet?”

“Well, you are making me want to,” he replies, half out of sarcasm and the other out of sheer frustration.

Peter cocks his head to the side. “But seriously, what was the best piece of advice your dad gave you? I mean, he must have given you loads--”

Tony plops his wrench down on the work table, flipping his phone out of his pocket. "You can’t give someone advice when that person ships you off to boarding school before you hit the third grade, Parker.”

Peter goes quiet. 

“That answer your question, kid?” He says. The words are quick and firm, but he immediately regrets them. The kid is just curious. He doesn’t know any better. 

“S-Sorry,” Peter begins, looking five shades paler than he normally is. “I-I shouldn’t have asked, Mr. Stark.”

“Finish your work. Happy’s down the hall, ask him to drive you home when you’re done,” he says, wiping shaky hands on the grease-stained towel. He tries focusing on the towel’s rips and smudges as he feels his blood pressure spike. “I have an appointment.”


	4. Chapter 4

The first thing that Peter remembers learning about Tony Stark is that he was orphaned at seventeen. The circumstances were different; Tony had two more degrees, a few more IQ points, and a hell of a lot more frequent flyer miles than Peter can ever hope to have by the time he dies, let alone by the time he was old enough to date, but Peter still sees the similarities. It's a small comfort, but to his chidhood self, it is a helpful one.

“Figure out a topic yet?”

Michelle rolls her eyes. “You say that like I have so few options.”

“Not many options for “female CEOs” part, but tons of options for the “sexism in the media” part,” he says. He lowers himself onto the bean bag chair in the library. For a split second, he considers leaning back, but doesn’t want to know what’s previously been done on these bean bag chairs.

“So whatcha pick?”

“Did you lose your ability to read?” she says as gnaws on her pen. Peter picks up one of the newspaper clippings around her. There’s one from 2008 with a coffee stain on the edge—that details speculation around Iron Man’s identity. The other are from The New York Times, but are op-eds about Pepper’s appointment as CEO. He doesn’t need to read the full article, but the fact that the journalist tries to insinuate that Potts’ appointment as CEO is a symptom of Tony Stark’s untreated PTSD.

“Fair,” he says as he lifts up one of the print outs. It’s a transcript of a speech Tony gave at his first press conference back from Afghanistan, a speech from MIT right before he showed up in Queens.

“So pizza tonight?” Michelle asks as he peers over the clippings.

“I love you, Dad. And I know you did the best you could…that’s what I would have said.”

He can’t help but notice that Tony talks about his dad like he barely knew him any better than his coworkers did. Hell, his coworkers probably knew him better than his own son did.

 

//

 

The second thing Peter learned about Tony Stark is that he knows how everything works except people. His demanour is as confident as can be, but part of Peter thinks it’s a defense. He can command a room, make a snarky remark to the press, but as

He’s starting to wonder if that was a trait passed down onto him from his dad.

 

//

 

Peter’s mind wanders from his calc textbooks as he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket.

Go to the bathroom.

“What is it?” Michelle asks. She’s in hour three of an essay writing comma if the amount of coffee around her is any indication.

“Raincheck on the pizza,” Peter says, barely able to splutter out the words before stumbling to his feet and slipping out the door.

 

//

 

“He needs your DNA,” Happy says.

Peter raises his eyebrows. He tries to hide his surprise that Tony wants anything to do with him, but he’s never been able to hide that since he showed up in his apartment. “For?”

“For trying to figure out if he’s your biological dad—no, dumbass. Dr. Banner’s doing tests on enhanced individuals so obviously you’re pretty high up that list.”

 

//

 

“Did you lose a bet?” Peter asks as he puts his backpack down. The duct-tape is barely holding on for dear life

“Hm?”

Peter doesn’t even try to hide the judgment on his face as he stares at his mentor’s robe. “Are you that hungover right now?”

Tony frowns at him as he glances down at the brown robe. “It’s vintage.” 

Peter chokes back a laugh as he wanders over to the work-desk, a lose shoe string flopping around as he walked. “So you bought it when you were drunk.”

“It was my old man’s actually.”

Peter feels his heart jump into his throat. “I’m—I’m sorry. Forget I said it.”

Peter hears his mentor’s wrench clatter against the desk.

“Tell me about Uncle Ben.”

“Huh?” Peter splutters.

“Tell me about Uncle Ben.”

“I…I don’t really like to—“

“Exactly.”

 

//

 

The third thing Peter knows for sure about Tony Stark is that he’s not one for sentiment. 

It was quickly followed up by a lesson of when to shut up.

**Author's Note:**

> This is definitely a question Peter or Ned would have tried to ask Tony at one point.


End file.
